Archive for 3. Excel at work.

Day 82: Hiking, hiking, more hiking

Day81_SunriseMtn With only 3 days left I still have a lot to do. On Saturday I decided I am going to go hike Mount Sanitas every morning for the last five mornings. I need to get as many more good workouts in as I can handle before the photo shoot on Thursday. Today will be hike number 3. It is still dark out so I should be hiking while the sun is rising and will get home before breakfast. In the meantime I also have a TON of work to get done since I am taking Thursday and Friday off. We only have April to test our current release and I want my test plans in top shape. The less I have to work nights and weekends the happier I will be but I am prepared to do whatever is necessary so… could be a rough month.

Start Date of Body For Life Challenge: January 7
Days Left: 3

Leave a Comment

Day 61: 2010 Oscar for Best Documentary -The Cove

Day38_LouiePsihoyos During Week 6, I featured Louie Psihoyos, the director of a documentary called The Cove. Psihoyos, who is based in Boulder, gave a talk at a local scuba shop shortly after Todd and I had seen his movie on the plane ride home from Bonaire. See feature here. 

The Cove just won an Academy Award for Best Documentary! If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. I never used to be crazy about documentaries in general but either they are growing on me or they are just getting better.

Leave a Comment

Day 23: Oracle

Day29_Oracle After talking about work all week I should mention what I do. I am a software quality assurance engineer for Oracle. My main area of responsibility at the moment is a set of tools that helps users create and manage databases. Originally my goal was to do something at work that would either make life better for me, my manager, or my team. Also, Oracle officially bought Sun a few days ago so my manager is making way for new team members. I have an chance to help make that transition a little easier as well. Given how this week started, I have decided to try to address all four of those opportunities. Since a couple people from my team read this blog I won’t go into details. I will tell you what I did when I am done.

Comments (2)

Day 22: Zen at Work

Day28_Zen Now that I am back on track, I can look into the original goal which is, aside from keeping up with the regular workload, to excel somehow. This is an elusive goal because whether or not you excel at work usually depends on who you ask. On one hand I need to take a Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance approach and know intrinsically the Truth of whether or not I achieved Quality work. After all, I am the only one who will truly know if I cut corners or if my work was Complete. In quality assurance, however, the Truth must be backed by measurements. A customer can say a product is great or terrible without providing metrics but a quality assurance engineer cannot. Likewise, it won’t mean anything to say I did a great job without information to back it up. So I have to come up with some concrete goals.

Leave a Comment

Day 21: The Near Meltdown

Day27_themeltdownThe stress from screwing up my deadline at work almost caused a meltdown in the “Eat Right” department yesterday. I could not stop imagining myself on the couch with a bag of Doritos and a handful of Oreos. But I stayed strong and it passed. And because of extenuating circumstances, I was later relieved of guilt for missing the date. Even though I am forgiven, however, I am still starting off the “Excel at Work” goal with a deficit. Being forgiven didn’t decrease the workload. Yesterday and today I started work at 5:00am. Just a small setback though. Today I should be able to finish catching up and cover two additional tasks assigned for early this week. Then I can get going on this goal.

Comments (2)

Day 20: Excel at Work

Day26_missed_deadline I started off this goal by missing a deadline yesterday. I never miss a deadline at work so I am a little distraught. Until a team meeting yesterday I thought I was kicking butt and right on track. I estimated my work would take 12 days and with the Martin Luther King holiday it put me at this Wednesday. I emailed my boss to confirm but she had email problems and never received it. I never followed up. The deadline was yesterday. Today is not my favorite day. Back to work.

Leave a Comment

Day 14: The Office

I thought it would be really embarrassing to post my weight on the internet but this is far worse. (Sigh.) The picture below was taken about a week ago. It is supposed to be my office but it looks more like an episode of Oprah. For the past year I have worked from my couch downstairs because I have been afraid to go in there. The picture doesn’t even do justice to how bad it was. I say “was” because soon after I took this photo I at least cleared off the floor and desk so I can work in there again. Just straightening it up is not going to cut it this time. I do that every couple months and before long it becomes a dumping ground again. I need to get rid of all this junk!

Comments (1)

New Year’s Eve – 2009

imageTODAY’S CHALLENGE was to do something creative to kick off the project. Unfortunately, a dry throat and aching muscles kept me up last night and I woke up too sick to do much.

However, my suffering inspired my husband Todd and I to buy a new bed. We dragged ourselves to Select Comfort and laid around in Sleep Number beds all afternoon. The result was the perfect complement to the “Change Myself” phase of the project – the promise of a better night’s sleep. It should arrive in two weeks!

Leave a Comment